In a Dutch criminal trial, plaintives are allowed to speak about damage done and claim compensation for it.

But as this is a political trial, this seems not the plaintives objective. The plaintives are political opponents of Geert Wilders who want to see his voiced opinions to be declared illegal. In first instance the court did not allowed such argumentations in court and ordered their argument to be limited to the damages done. Thus when the first plaintive lawyer criticized the prosecutor for not asking guilty, the court interfered and did not allow the argument.

But when in the afternoon plaintive Prakke argued on different grounds to do the very same thing, the court did not interfere. This lead to protests of defense lawyer Moszkowicz supported by the prosecution. But the court decided to allow the argument as it was deemed to support the damage claims. Thus plaintive lawyer Prakke continued her argument for a guilty verdict for Wilders. But after time went on, defense lawyer Moszkowicz protested again. Also this time the prosecution supported the defense lawyers protest. The prosecution said they had the impression that plaintive lawyer Prakke was overdoing their indictment.

This second time the court decided differently. They did not correct her on what she had said, but what she was about to say in court. Before her plea, the plaintive lawyer had handed over a written copy of her argument to the court. During the short deliberation after the protest the court had read it and decided they did want to allow what she was about to say. The court requested her to continue her speech at a point they did want to allow. Plaintive lawyer Prakke, then requested the court some time to adjust her speech…

Plaintive lawyer Stijnen was also stopped several times and nearly banned from the court for repeatingly criticizing the prosecution. Although the court ordered him to limit his argument in court to arguments to support damage claims for his client(s), they did allow him to make a political speech that argued for Wilders conviction.

Enait: ‘You interupted me in the middle of a sentence!’

Court to Enait: ‘Yes, that is the nature of an interruption.’

(Exchange between Mohammed Faizel Ali Enait and the judge presiding today, after the latter admonished the former for disallowed use of language)

Last plaintive layer was Mohammed Faizel Ali Enait. He did not direct his speech to the court but directly to Wilders and it started by a thread that included “an eye for an eye”. The court directly corrected him for not addressing the court. But after he then started to compare Wilders to Hitler, the court stopped him again. The angry argument that followed was as usual for his style, supported by of all kind of rare, obscure and even fantasy words. Some of his claims: there is “blood on the windows” of Muslims and that the “Muslims suffered under the threat of anti-Muslim terror” in Holland. Most interesting claim was a recent conviction of a person who was convicted for threatening to put his beard on fire.